I facilitated a leadership development program last week where participants were asked to take a company based assessment of their leadership skills. The assessment identified a number of strengths but for most of the folks, the results also came back with about 8-10 “areas of opportunity” for improvement.
Most folks had a worried look on their face as they reviewed the findings asking, “What the heck do I do now?”
Research conducted by Mckinsey in 2014 indicated that the context in which leadership development occurs must be taken into consideration to determine which skills are the right skills. If your company is needing people strong in decision strengthen your decision making skills.
At home, if you’re kids are becoming teenagers; you might want to make sure you are developing some flexibility around the word “no.”
As my colleague Michael Couch and I are writing in our new book on “Retooling Leadership Development,” it is important to focus on just a few new skills to develop at any one time but to also recognize that the learning curve to competency is not years but months.
We recommend that you find a simple mantra to remind yourself about your target goal. It may be “listen before you speak,” or “others have interesting points of view, make sure you know theirs,” or “practice anything and you can master it.”
Resilience is about growth and that becoming a better leader and person means taking on new challenges that you know will help you, your family, community, and company succeed.
© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2018
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